What were you like at school........?

I think it has been said that education is too good for the young, or words to that effect. I know that I would take more advantage of a university education now than I did when I was young. I've taken three French courses with the OU and loved every minute, even the exams; the creative writing course had great materials but we had a dreadful tutor. I know about adult ed from the other side and it's such a pleasure to teach grown-ups who really want to learn as opposed to sullen and disruptive teenagers - a minority I know, but they make life miserable for their teachers and peers alike. Adults have so much life experience to bring to bear on their studies -literature in particular.

I enjoyed my adult studying more than school too, though I was happy at school and breezed along merrily and a bit scattily for the most part. Mine wasn't a great school, but many of the nuns (the ones we had to deal with) were really 'human', which no doubt helped. Also I had an excellent bunch of friends who were at least as eccentric as I could ever be and I suppose we supported each other and buffered each other from a lot of teenage silliness, with the result that we hardly noticed it. We were academic in the sense that we realised the advantages of good exam results for getting to where we wanted to go. Maybe the fact that all our parents had come from poor working class homes but had got into grammar schools and university through determination and hard work and had landed good professions as a result taught us something. The difference between their parents' expectations and theirs was an education in itself. We were all from families that valued education for its own sake as well. My father always said he didn't mind what we ended up as, so long as we could think.

Why are there so many ex-convent girls on these forums? I seem to be in a minority, having gone to a normal Scottish secondary school where, in my opinion, I had an excellent education which I didn't appreciate until my own children were in the secondary phase themselves and I could make some comparisons.

Religious organisations set up a lot of schools in the nineteenth century. That's why. Maybe that happened less in Scotland than in England.

Most of the teachers in my school were not nuns. The year I left my convent school the nuns left too as they were not needed any more. It's now an 'ordinary' co-ed comprehensive secondary school instead of being an ordinary girls' grammar school.

Same with mine Bagitha. My best friend entered the order that ran our school. Since then she's been a teacher, a social worker, a factory worker, in ordinary clothes, (where she was summoned to the boss's office and accused of being a communist) and a flight attendant on Easy Jet. These days she does a heap of work for elderly (80+) people in her locality. Times change.

My experience echoes Annobel's. A good primary school (with class of 18) followed by a Scottish Academy - that's before the academy name was distorted in recent times - then on to St Andrews. Gracesmum I was at St A around the same time as you and never encountered those 'swot' nicknames! My son followed a similar pattern but clearly uni straight from school was not right for him and he dropped out after a year. However he has now decided (at 26) that he's ready to go back and get on with it. He has always worked, is buying a decent flat and has a lovely bright girlfriend who is encouraging him. I don't remember any traumatic events at school - good friends and teachers (apart from one). Loved PE but hated hockey. Was allowed to drop sciences in favour of languages which was good for me, but in hindsight my not have been the right decision. My 2 sisters did much the same and dad was proud as he'd often been told that it was a waste to educate girls. He supported us all the way through (as did Mum who went into teaching at 40). My school memories are pretty good.

Scottish schools are coming out of this rather well, aren't they, em? In our case, there was no competition from private day schools in the area and children from all backgrounds went to the same 'bog standard' academy. My school wasn't fussy about uniform either.

I think historically Scotland has always had a much more comprehensive approach to education than England has ever had. Might explain why there are so many Scots at Westminster!

Annobel we do have fee-paying Dundee High and my dad was keen to see us sit the bursary exams. Without being arrogant we were all 'top of the class' at our excellent primary school and would have had a good chance, but felt very strongly that we wanted to go to the academy which had a good reputation and to which we'd always aspired (plus we actually liked the uniform). I honestly feel I'd have had the same results anyway and dad wasn't too upset when we said no!!

Good job you didn't go to the High School em you might just have been there when I did my probation (1963 - 65). Were you at Grove, Morgan or Harris?

Just joined Gransnet - good chuckle already!
Primary school in Tanganyika (Tanzania) for me - loved it. At 9 went to boarding school in Co. Durham - hated it with a vengeance.
High school was awful too - took me ages to make friends: I was too well-spoken (bloomin' boarding school), and had the mickey royally taken and was bullied, and I was boring because I'd never been a "naughty" type...
But I loved English and languages, and my teachers in those subjects would be pleased with their efforts (I think): I've been a proofreader for well over 40 years and still love the work. Miss J, Miss P and Mr F - thank you!

Welcome, Freda. I hope you enjoy GN as much as I do. We have a lot of frivolous fun but when it's necessary we are also supportive and sympathetic. Just what you'd want from a group of friends.

Hello, freda and welcome!

Thanks, Annobel & Ariadne!

Hello Freda which school in Co Durham ? I live in the NE and friends went to boarding schools in the area.
I hope you enjoy Gransnet.

Ninathenanna , I was the same, lonely and bullied. My sister and I went to school in Edinburgh,I was younger and smaller than her, but my mother dressed me in her hand me downs which swamped me and made me look like Dopey out of Snow White. this combined with the fact that I was painfully shy, made me a figure of fun for all. It all changed in the Sixth form when I found that I could make them laugh,and suddenly they were all my friends, and the strange thing is that I was so grateful for friendship I had never had before that I let the little witches get away with it ,I never referred to the past.

Oh sad. Bullying is foul. I was an outsider in junior school cos I could never do skipping, ball games , hopskotch etc. Bookish. But not bullied.
I remember one xmas dinner where there was a competitive "do you know what my mother sent me to school in" interchange.
My DS1 offered an orange jumper (everyone else in dark green) [shame]
My offering was a string vest - remember them, mainly holes, when i was 11 and going to new grammar school. My mother was convinced that due to it being in sheds i would freeze to death
But my mate Richard trumped us both with "liberty bodices handed on from big sisters" . Poor chap.

At school, my claim to fame was yet another detention and being told to write a hundred lines which I did. It was a one liner, "A hundred lines". No further punishment ensued so perhaps the teachers saw the funny side of it or had done the same thing themselves at some stage.

Can't say that I particularly enjoyed school except French in which I later gained a degree. I was a bit of a naughty girl in primary school particularly because I was ahead of the class at times and was bored. One of my grandsons has overcome this problem and been moved up a grade by sitting at the back of the class, twiddling his thumbs and repeatedly saying "I'm bored". He told me this himself but I am not sure that his mother knows.

When it came to further education, I was in my element and even went to French and Spanish evening classes, after my daughter was born, which were so enjoyable and I even achieved more qualifications despite suffering from 'examinitis'.

I think I was mislead at school as to my career path and had never considered teaching at further education/degree level which I regret.

I hated school. I was very shy and not disruptive at all. I seldom felt that any of the teachers liked me. My mother told me it was because she and my father were divorced and, as everyone knew back in the 60s and 70s, children from broken homes turned into juvenile delinquents!
But I did ok and made it to university, which I loved, despite my schooling.

I was a difficult girl to handle in my all girls grammar school. I was cheeky and rude and downright cruel to old-maid-like teachers. I'm ashamed when I think about it.
At one parent's evening the form mistress told my mother all about my sins and Mum replied. I can't do anything with her either!

I loved to dance and in the break we practiced dancing in a row like chorus girls in the musicals we loved and I had the idea for us to enter the classroom all in a row high-kicking. The lesson was to be afternoon Maths and the young inexperienced teacher was already quite miserable with me in the class.

When she was in the classroom, we girls, five or six of us, who had been waiting outside entered. One, two, three, high kicking and singing, but instead of cheers there was a deathly silence. I saw the headmistress at the back of the classroom. We froze. She stood up . 'Just go out this minute and come in again properly.' We all did of course and stayed in everyday after school in detention, for a whole week.
I improved after that and finished my schooling without being expelled.

I went to boarding school from the age of 10 and loved it. It was right for me and just like one long sleep-over. I didn't learn much though - the academic standard was appalling, we were taught to be "young ladies" and the thinking in those days was that girls didn't need the qualifications as they would get married very soon.
I was also very lazy, having the idea that education should be a process of osmosis and because I was in the class room I should just absorb the knowledge without any input from me. It didn't work unfortunately, but I look back on school days with happy memories and still keep in touch with several of my year.

Some of you have had some awful experiences, so I'm grateful that Heckmondwike Grammar School in West Yorkshire was so good. I was there from 1956-61. I wanted to take my A levels but Mum wouldn't let me. Apart from escaping PE lessons with the sadistic bitch from hell, I was heartbroken to leave.

There was no bullying by other students, no corporal punishment, and best of all, we were taught to think and question and research. However, I was not popular with some of the teachers, apart from Latin and biology, and failed 5 of my 8 mock O levels, which were marked by teachers. I passed all 8 actual GCEs well, even gaining the French prize for my year, which goes to show I was no teacher's pet.

I was bolshie, and refused to accept any instructions from prefects, deeming them not fit. The headmaster put me in detention for this, but there I met all the really naughty kids and loved it! We had to polish the school silver, which was quite a congenial occupation.

(Later in life I went to university and gained a BAHons)

Well Annobel seems we came close to meeting all those years ago! If only your probationary years had been at Harris! I was there 1960-66!

Looking back, it is how you left school which is important. I left with a working knowledge of physics and chemistry, could write English fluently, had a head for Maths and a passable French.
I could swim and play tennis.

I don't have children in the UK sytem, but is this still the case? I think not. We had the best of it. My grammar school was newly built in extensive grounds and of course you had to pass the 11+ to get there.

The last time I saw it whilst in Sheffield in 2007, it was shabby, windows dirty and the tennis courts overgrown with the nets hanging down. It was made into a comprehensive of course.

I hated school and I don't think it liked me much.